Rob Lowe and Ginnifer Goodwin will star in 'Killing Kennedy'

National Geographic has scored a pretty good casting coup for its upcoming original movie
"Killing Kennedy":
Rob Lowe and
Ginnifer Goodwin will star as John and Jacqueline Kennedy.

The film has also signed
Michelle Trachtenberg, late of "Gossip Girl," to play Marina Oswald, Lee Harvey Oswald's wife.

"Killing Kennedy" is based on the best-selling book by
Bill O'Reilly and
Martin Dugard that chronicles the events leading up to JFK's assassination on Nov. 22, 1963. It focuses on Kennedy and Lee Harvey Oswald (who has yet to be cast) and key events in their lives that led them both to Dallas that day.

Kelly Masterson ("Before the Devil Knows You're Dead") is writing the script for the movie, which
Nelson McCormick ("Touch," "Southland") will direct.

Lowe ("Parks and Recreation," "Behind the Candelabra") joins a long list of actors who have played John F. Kennedy over the years, among them
Greg Kinnear ("The Kennedys"),
Bruce Greenwood ("Thirteen Days"),
William Petersen (HBO's movie "The Rat Pack"),
Patrick Dempsey ("JFK: Reckless Youth") and Lowe's former "West Wing" co-star
Martin Sheen (the 1983 miniseries "Kennedy").

The list of actresses who have played Jackie Kennedy is equally long. Goodwin ("Once Upon a Time") is following in the footsteps of
Katie Holmes ("The Kennedys"),
Jacqueline Bisset ("America's Prince: The John F. Kennedy Jr. Story"),
Jill Hennessy ("Jackie, Ethel, Joan: The Women of Camelot"),
Blair Brown ("Kennedy") and
Jaclyn Smith (the 1981 TV movie "Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy"), among others.

"Killing Kennedy" will begin filming in June and will air in November. NatGeo says it will time the premiere to the 50th anniversary of JFK's death.